Grimm's Fairy Stories. Братья Гримм

taken no trouble about the matter, but had picked up the first passable looking peasant woman whom they had happened to meet.

      After glancing at the three, the King said: "Without doubt, at my death the kingdom will be Dummling's."

      Once more the brothers loudly expressed their discontent, and gave the King no peace, declaring —

      "It is impossible for us to agree to Dummling becoming ruler of the kingdom," and they insisted that the women should be required to spring through a hoop which was suspended from the ceiling in the centre of the hall, thinking to themselves "Now, certainly our peasants will get the best of it, they are active and sturdy, but that fragile lady will kill herself if she jumps."

      To this, again, the King consented, and the peasants were first given trial.

      They sprang through the hoop, indeed, but so clumsily that they fell, breaking their arms and legs.

      Upon which the lovely lady whom Dummling had brought home, leapt through as lightly as a fawn, and this put an end to all contention.

      So the crown came to Dummling, who lived long, and ruled his people temperately and justly.

      LITTLE SNOW WHITE

      It was in the middle of winter, when the broad flakes of snow were falling around, that a certain queen sat working at her window, the frame of which was made of fine black ebony; and, as she was looking out upon the snow, she pricked her finger, and three drops of blood fell upon it. Then she gazed thoughtfully down on the red drops which sprinkled the white snow and said, "Would that my little daughter may be as white as that snow, as red as the blood, and as black as the ebony window-frame!" And so the little girl grew up; her skin was a white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as blood, and her hair as black as ebony; and she was called Snow-White.

      But this queen died; and the king soon married another wife, who was very beautiful, but so proud that she could not bear to think that any one could surpass her. She had a magical looking-glass, to which she used to go and gaze upon herself in it, and say —

      "Tell me, glass, tell me true!

      Of all the ladies in the land,

      Who is fairest? tell me who?"

      And the glass answered, "Thou, Queen, art fairest in the land"

      But Snow-White grew more and more beautiful; and when she was seven years old, she was as bright as the day, and fairer than the queen herself. Then the glass one day answered queen, when she went to consult it as usual —

      "Thou, Queen, may'st fair and beauteous be,

      But Snow-White is lovelier far than thee?"

      When the queen heard this she turned pale with rage and envy; and calling to one of her servants said, "Take Snow-White away into the wide wood, that I may never see her more." Then the servant led the little girl away; but his heart melted when she begged him to spare her life, and he said, "I will not hurt thee, thou pretty child." So he left her there alone; and though he thought it most likely that the wild beasts would tear her to pieces, he felt as if a great weight were taken off his heart when he had made up his mind not to kill her, but leave her to her fate.